Testing Calibration in Subquadratic Time

In the recent literature on machine learning and decision making, calibration has emerged as a desirable and widely-studied statistical property of the outputs of binary prediction models. However, the algorithmic aspects of measuring model calibration have remained relatively less well-explored. Motivated by [BGHN23], which proposed a rigorous framework for measuring distances to calibration, we initiate the algorithmic study of calibration through the lens of property testing. We define the problem of calibration testing from samples where given $n$ draws from a distribution $\mathcal{D}$ on (predictions, binary outcomes), our goal is to distinguish between the case where $\mathcal{D}$ is perfectly calibrated, and the case where $\mathcal{D}$ is $\varepsilon$-far from calibration. We design an algorithm based on approximate linear programming, which solves calibration testing information-theoretically optimally (up to constant factors) in time $O(n^{1.5} \log(n))$. This improves upon state-of-the-art black-box linear program solvers requiring $\Omega(n^\omega)$ time, where $\omega > 2$ is the exponent of matrix multiplication. We also develop algorithms for tolerant variants of our testing problem, and give sample complexity lower bounds for alternative calibration distances to the one considered in this work. Finally, we present preliminary experiments showing that the testing problem we define faithfully captures standard notions of calibration, and that our algorithms scale to accommodate moderate sample sizes.